


Warmth

by pettifogger



Series: Vienna's Mando Oneshots [3]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Begging, Concussions, Din Djarin Needs a Hug, Din Djarin Removes the Helmet, Dirty Talk, Emotional Sex, F/M, Failed the stop writing Din in pain and/or begging challenge, First Time, Force Healing (Star Wars), Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Virginity, Mild Blood, Near Death Experiences, Touch-Starved Din Djarin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:26:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28249848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pettifogger/pseuds/pettifogger
Summary: Warm. That’s the first thing you notice when your eyes flutter open, however many hours later. You feel warm, which is unusual; space is freezing and you’re used to being cold down to your bones. But you’re warm through and through and there’s a pleasant weight wrapped around your middle. As you rub your eyes and yawn, you realize there’s also a soft feeling on your neck like you’ve fallen asleep in front of a heated vent.Realization arrives slowly, piecing together in your brain as you come awake. You—well, you slept with the Mandalorian, didn’t you?The Mandalorian has a brush with death, and, as always, you're there to help him through it. There's other things you can help with, though.Inspired bythesepostsby jakesmysterio on tumblr.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Reader, Din Djarin/You, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Reader, The Mandalorian/Reader
Series: Vienna's Mando Oneshots [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2202585
Comments: 27
Kudos: 497





	Warmth

Tatooine is—well, not your favorite planet in the galaxy. As planets go, it’s alright. It has actual towns, which is an upside, but it’s also dry as a bone and too far from any other planet of significance. The binary sunrises and sunsets are just about the only thing that makes stopping on Tatooine worth it.

The child, much like you, doesn’t like Tatooine either. You’ve been in the Mos Espa market for what feels like hours, stopping at every _single_ stall, trying to find something that the kid will eat. Every time you hand him something, he sniffs it, scrunches up his little green nose, and tosses it back at you. Every time, you make a face back at him, apologize to the vendor for wasting their time, and move on. You’re starting to overheat and are seriously considering returning to the _Razor Crest_ and making the kid eat pre-packaged rations just to teach him a lesson about being a picky eater.

The child babbles and tugs on your shirt.

“I know, you’re hungry,” you sigh. “So am I. And I know you want frogs, but you’re not going to get frogs. Amphibians and desert planets do not mix.”

You don’t know if he can understand a word you say, but talking to him makes you feel slightly more sane. Otherwise, you’d be going out of your mind. The Mandalorian has been on a mission for more than two days, and it’s just been you and the kid since then. You spent the first two days on board the docked _Razor Crest,_ fixing what broke on your way to Tatooine and tending to the kid, but you were bored by the third day. Hence the short—and fruitless—trip to Mos Espa. 

You reach the end of the market and decide to call it a day. You’re pretty sure there’s some bread and fruit squirrelled away somewhere on the ship and that will tide the kid over to tomorrow. Tomorrow—well, _hopefully,_ tomorrow the Mandalorian will be back and you’ll be headed offworld as soon as physically possible—but if not, you can try the marketplace again. In the meantime, you and the kid can survive off whatever is left in the cargo hold. Not great, but fine. Much like Tatooine.

☆

The _Razor Crest_ isn’t far from Mos Espa. As you walk, the child bobs along in his orb, babbling away. You’re play-bickering with the kid as you approach the ship. All of a sudden, he looks away from you to the _Crest_ , chittering louder and pointing one of his little green fingers frantically. You follow his line of sight and immediately realize that something is off.

One: you didn’t leave the gate down when you left. You’re not an idiot. You shut the gate and left only the landing gear on the hot sand. 

Two: there’s something dark on the ground outside the ship. Wait, two things. Heat radiates off the planet’s surface and makes your vision swim, but you can clearly see two dark spots on the ground. One is just at the foot of the gate and the other lies just a few feet away.

You walk a little faster, pulling the kid’s crib close to your side and checking for the blaster on your belt. No immediate danger presents itself from the situation ahead of you, but you’re prepared for anything on this forsaken planet. It’s probably just scavengers. It wouldn’t be a shock if they mistook the _Crest_ for a hunk of scrap. If they managed to pull a few panels off, it’s not a big deal. Even so, you pick up the pace.

As you approach, the thing crumpled at the foot of the gate comes into focus. Realization settles like ice in your chest, regardless of the heat of the planet. The thing is shiny—shiny like a mirror. Shiny like beskar. You grab the kid’s crib and break out into a flat run, kicking sand up behind you. 

You have no idea what happened before you arrived but it’s _bad_. A few feet from the landing gear lies a limp body dressed in tan robes and covered in blood; a gun is discarded in the sand not far from its hand. A swift kick to the side of the body tells you that whoever that was is good and dead. The bigger problem, though, is at the foot of the gate: the Mandalorian, collapsed flat on the ground, bleeding out onto the gangplank. 

You drop down to your knees at his side, scanning his body for wounds. There’s a cut on his left arm just under the beskar pauldron. Whoever cut him sliced straight through the thick layers of fabric under his armor, and dried blood is crusted down his sleeve to the inside of his elbow. There’s blood on his thigh, too, staining the brown fabric dark red. It’s hard to tell where the wound is but it’s still bleeding. His blood drips onto the hot sand and smells fucking awful, like rancid meat and rusty metal. You choke down revulsion and shake the Mandalorian’s shoulders.

“Mando. Hey, _Mando._ ” You try to keep your voice from wavering. He gives no sign of recognition, and you shake him harder. “ _Shiny_. Buckethead. _Hey.”_

From behind you, you hear the child burble, and you wave for him to be quiet. You sit up on your knees to get better leverage and shake the Mandalorian’s shoulders for all you’re worth, praying to the Maker that he isn’t laying dead in the sands of fucking Tatooine.

He gasps quietly and his chest lifts off the ground, just a little, and you let out a relieved sigh. 

“Maker, you scared me. What the hell happened here?” You look over your shoulder at the mess behind you, taking in the corpse and his discarded gun and the patterns of a vicious fight left on the sand. 

Beskar scratches across the gangplank as the Mandalorian lifts his head to look at you. He tilts his helmet and scans down to your hand, still holding tight to his wounded arm. His movements are creaky and slow, reminding you of an old droid in need of repair.

“Who…?” His voice is groggy and cracked through the modulator. He coughs and it sounds like static. “Who the fuck are you?”

☆

This is not good. This is, in fact, _catastrophically_ bad, and you’re doing your very best to stay calm and keep panic from rising in your chest and choking you.

The corpse outside is definitely dead. You checked again just to be sure. Not your problem, not right now.

The child is locked in his crib in the corner of the room. You don’t want him to see this.

And the Mandalorian—the Mandalorian is laying on the sorry piece of metal he calls a bed, having been dragged there by you. You are now covered in his blood and caked in sand and dirt, smelling like a butcher’s shop on a hot day and sick to your stomach with nausea and worry. That, and the Mandalorian also seems to have no fucking clue who you are and is refusing to let you touch him.

You know the rules, but the rules went out the window when you found him near dead on the ground outside his ship, so you go for the helmet first. The cuts on his limbs are serious, but you’re far more concerned with the loss of memory and the fact that he sounds drunk when he tries to talk. Clear signs of a concussion, you know that, but you need to see his face to check the severity of the injury.

Except when you go for the helmet, he snarls and smacks your hands away. Hard. _A dying man should not have that much strength to hit people_ , you think darkly.

“You think you don’t know who I am,” you snap. “ _Fine_. But you are about to fucking die, so let me take off your helmet.”

“No.” It seems like the only word he can manage at the moment.

“ _Yes._ ” You move forward again, trying in vain to keep his hands down with one arm while your free hand goes for his helmet. “I am not letting you die.” 

He fights back a little too hard and gasps, back arching off the cot as he writhes in pain. His right hand flies to his left arm, where the crust of dried blood has cracked and fresh blood drips down onto his sleeve. “J-just this.”

You’d scream if you weren’t forcing yourself to stay calm. “Fine. _Fine_ . Stay here. Do you hear me? Do not move. I’m going to get a medkit, and you have to _stay still._ ” 

When you return with the medkit, he’s ignored your orders. He’s clutching his arm and moving his wounded leg in a vain attempt to stave off the pain. You force his flailing limbs down and paw at the medkit to see what’s inside. One packet of bacta. _Fuck_. You were _certain_ you had more onboard, but—oh, right. Less than a week ago you got cut with a dirty blade in a scuffle gone wrong on Nevarro, and the Mandalorian had insisted on treating it with bacta to prevent an infection, no matter how much you protested you’d be fine. Now you have one packet of bacta to treat a man with two severe wounds and a possible concussion. Fuck. 

You force yourself to concentrate, pulling the medkit apart and setting aside what you don’t need. You start by cleaning his injuries as best you can—including extracting threads from his clothes embedded in his gaping wounds with a pair of tweezers—and cover them with bacta gel and bandages. It hurts to disinfect them; you can hear it in his ragged gasps and the way his feet scrabble on the foot of the cot as you work. As soon as the bacta is applied, it soothes the pain and he settles down. Eventually, when he’s not actively trying to throw you off him, you shift up to his upper body and go for the helmet again. 

“ _N-no._ ” His voice is weaker this time and his grip is loose when he grabs your wrist. 

He’s losing consciousness. Not a good sign. Very much not a good sign. You yank his hand off your wrist and place both hands on the helmet, but he jerks his head away. That’s worse—you don’t want his head rattling around in his helmet and bruising his brain worse than it already is, so you let go of the helmet and rest your hands on his chest. Your hands curl into fists and your mind races as you try to figure a way out of this situation that doesn’t end up with a dead Mandalorian and an orphaned green infant. 

“If you don’t let me take off your helmet and check your head, you might die,” you explain. You force your voice to stay commanding and flat. “And you can’t fall asleep like this, even if it feels like you want to. So let me—” you grunt, slowly reaching for the helmet, “—do my fucking _job_.”

He growls and jerks away and you bite the inside of your cheek to keep from shouting in frustration. What do you do? What _can_ you do? He’s exhibiting all the signs of a severe concussion and sounds like he’s about to go under but he won’t even let you take off his helmet to check his skull for bruises or fractures or internal bleeding. You debate running into the cargo hold and grabbing a sedative—intended for rowdy quarry—and sticking him with it, but a tug on your pant leg distracts you.

The child stands at your feet. He’s escaped from his pod, which is now floating aimlessly around the room.

“No.” Your stomach twists. You can’t let the kid see his guardian like this. “Get back,” you bite out as you try to shoo him away. 

The child only hangs on tighter.

“What? What do you want?”

The kid starts to grab at the fabric over your calves as if trying to scale your leg. You relent and scoop him up, holding him so he faces away from his dad’s bloody body.

The kid babbles urgently and twists in your arms, reaching for the Mandalorian. You’re about to carry the kid back to his crib and lock it when Mando manages a nod, reaching out his wounded arm for the child. None of this makes sense, but, then again, what do you have to lose? You let the kid reach for his father, and he rests his little hands gently on the Mandalorian’s visor.

To your surprise, the Mandalorian doesn’t immediately bat the kid’s hand away. Instead, he drops his head back onto the cot. A shaky sigh comes through his modulator.

“Okay.” 

_Okay?_

“You—you can take it off. Just—for a minute.” His breathing is shaky, like saying a few words is far more than he can manage at the moment. “Don’t look. The k-kid—let the kid…” He gestures vaguely in the direction of his head, and you don’t know what he means, but the child seems to understand. 

You swallow hard and nod. Next to the cot is a dimmer for the lights in the alcove, which you turn down as low as you can while still being able to see a little. You place the child on the Mandalorian’s chest and reach for his helmet for the third time. This time, he lets you move it. His hands stay rigid at his sides as you grip the sharp underside of the beskar mask and ease it off slowly. You cast your eyes askance and keep them there, focusing on the lower half of his body. His pants are dirty, you notice, like he had been knocked to the ground on his knees. And his shoes have scuffs on the toes. Focusing on irrelevant details helps you keep it together. 

The Mandalorian’s labored breathing comes clear through the air, telling you that the helmet is all the way off. The child wails a plaintive little cry and a strange noise fills the tiny alcove: it’s a high-pitched, reedy, eerie sound, not unlike the noise an old holo makes as the image flickers into being. There’s pressure on your ears, too, like you’re underwater, and the Mandalorian’s body tenses on the cot. It only lasts a few moments, but every second is an onslaught. When the sound finally stops, the pressure on your ears pops and the kid makes a soft noise of exhaustion.

“Good job, kid.” The Mandalorian’s voice is still rough, but it sounds more stable than it did just moments before. It’s when he says your name—clear, conscious, as though he knows who you are again—that you realize the child has done something monumental.

He repeats your name and you force yourself to keep from looking at him in response. A worn leather glove finds your hand, still holding his helmet.

“I can’t…” he trails off and sucks in another breath. “I can’t—my arm—can’t lift it. Please. Don’t—don’t look.”

This is madness and you’re still confused, but he sounds better and he knows your name. That’s a good sign. You nod, jaw tight, and keep your eyes averted as you fumble to replace his helmet. It’s not easy going, trying to blindly replace the unwieldy bucket on his head, but you nearly manage it. 

It gets stuck halfway, though, and you glance up at the Mandalorian without even thinking. You don’t see much, but you still see it. He’s dirty, blood and grit obscuring the half of his face not hidden by the helmet, but it’s—it’s still his face you’re looking at. Under the dark smudges, you can see olive skin, the shadow of dark stubble. A strong jawline. Full lips. You slam your eyes shut and pull the helmet all the way down. It slides into place, and both you and the Mandalorian let out simultaneous breaths. The kid is passed out on his chest and Mando manages to lift his uninjured arm to pet the child’s head.

“Good—good work, kid.” The visor tilts in your direction. A subtle motion, but you catch it. “You too.” If you didn’t know better, you’d think you heard him whisper _thank you_ afterwards. 

☆

Sitting on a durasteel floor for hours is murder on your back but you don’t care. Hours have passed since the child did whatever he did to the Mandalorian, and the little green infant is still out cold. You’re slumped against the cot with your arms cradling the child and your ears straining to make sure the Mandalorian is still breathing. 

_Stars_ , you’re exhausted. There’s so much more work to do—a body to deal with, bandages to change, urgent messages to send—but you have no plans to move. You won’t budge until you’re sure the Mandalorian will make it through the night. 

☆

Twenty-four hours later, and you’re offworld. You nodded off while monitoring the Mandalorian, but he made it through the night just fine. Whatever the child did to him was better than any bacta. When you go to change the bandages from the day before, the Mandalorian’s wounds are starting to close. He’s conscious, too, and he both knows who you are and what happened on Tatooine. 

He tries to tell you about the events that led up to his collapse outside the _Razor Crest_ —something about a rogue bounty hunter and quarry used as bait—but talking too much makes him start coughing and you worry the child is going to have to use his magical baby powers again just to knock Mando out for his own good. You force the Mandalorian to stay in bed while you busy yourself with preparing for departure. First: bringing in the body from outside and freezing it in carbonite. Second: sending an urgent message to Greef Karga, telling him that you’re on your way with a body and you expect payment as soon as you arrive. (Who cares if this body wasn’t the body Mando was sent to fetch? It’s _a_ body. It must be worth something.) Third: a quick trip into Mos Espa to barter with the only medical supplier in town for bacta. You manage to convince Mando to let you administer an injection upon your return, and, while he’s passed out in blissful healing sleep, you pilot the ship offworld and into neutral space. 

The child has been mysteriously well-behaved since waking up from his extended nap. He sits quietly in the co-pilot’s seat while you fly, his big eyes reflecting the view out the transparisteel window.

Outside, stars twinkle in the darkness of space. The _Crest_ isn’t moving. It’s silent and still in the cockpit, the tranquility broken only by the occasional sound of the kid’s babbling or the hum of a ship passing by in the distance. You curl your knees up to your chest in the captain’s chair, feeling tiny in the space the Mandalorian fills so easily. You know he’s asleep and his body is healing, but you still feel tense. Your mind flits through possibilities of what might have happened if you’d come back any later than you did. If you hadn’t decided to leave the marketplace when you did, you might’ve found a much different situation. The Mandalorian dead on the ground, bleeding out on the hot sands of Tatooine. The child left fatherless. Or, perhaps, the Mandalorian alive, but so wounded that he would never remember the child or you or anything else. Either way, your projections bring you to one unavoidable result. You would be left without the two beings who have given your life meaning for the first time in years. The realization that you might’ve lost him—lost the Mandalorian, the stoic man in armor you’ve grown to care for—crawls up in your throat and chokes you.

You drop your face to your knees. Your eyes feel like Tatooine, too dry for water to flow naturally, but your shoulders shake all the same. It’s a mockery of crying, but it’s all you can manage. You’re just so fucking tired, even when you should be relieved. 

“Hey.”

The sound of the Mandalorian’s voice cuts through your spiral. Turning the chair, you see him leaning against the doorway to the cockpit. His usual cocky stance is a bit lopsided and he’s bracing himself on the wall, but relief fills you at the sight of him up and moving. 

“I thought I told you to stay in bed.”

He grunts and shifts his weight. “’m alright. Thanks to him,” he nods at the child, who smiles when he realizes his dad has arrived, “and you.”

Heat creeps up your cheeks and you turn the chair away from the Mandalorian. Just a little. Just so he doesn’t see your face color at a simple _thank you_. You can’t look at him without mapping what little you saw of his face onto his visor. Olive skin, dark hair, full lips. _Don’t think about it,_ you command yourself. _Don’t do it. Don’t go down that road._

To your surprise, the Mandalorian doesn’t push you to talk. Instead, he just takes another step into the cockpit. His hand comes down on the arm of the chair. “When was the last time you slept?”

You know the answer immediately: sixty hours. Two days since he got hurt, plus twelve hours of being awake before you came across the mess outside the ship. But you don’t tell him, because you’re supposed to be worrying about him right now, not the other way around. You decide a shrug is better than talking.

“Go to sleep.” His voice is soft. He’s looking down at you through his visor, pinning you in his chair with a look. It always surprises you, how much nuance the modulator can manage to convey. He sounds—concerned. Like you’re the one who needs constant care, not the one who had a very recent brush with death.

“I’m fine.” 

“No, you’re not.” A gloved finger curls under your chin and forces your face upwards. “I can see the bags under your eyes.”

“Thanks,” you say. You might be tired, but you’re not dead; you can still manage sarcasm.

“You’re welcome.” He drops your chin and pushes at your shoulder instead, a half-hearted effort to dislodge you from his chair. “I’m not kidding. Go to sleep. I won’t die. And if I do, the kid can bring me back.”

It’s barely a joke, but it makes you snort all the same. Reluctantly, you acquiesce and unfold yourself from his chair. Your legs are a bit wobbly from sitting with your legs to your chest for so long, but the Mandalorian stabilizes you with a covered hand on your arm. You mumble a _thank you_ in his direction and stumble out of the cockpit. You manage to haul yourself to the bathroom and take a half-hearted, cold shower, watching blood and sand wash off your hands and swirl down the drain. It doesn’t make you feel any better. It just confirms that being awake is not worth it at the moment. You give up on trying to make yourself feel human and haul yourself to the hold in the direction of your bedroll. 

☆

Unfortunately, it turns out that one can be both exhausted and completely unable to sleep. You’re laying on your bedroll on the floor of the cargo hold and staring up at the ceiling. It’s dreadfully boring, just endless dingy durasteel studded with screws to keep it together, but somehow not dull enough to knock you out. You rub your dry eyes and pray to the Maker for rest, but your body is still too tense.

An idea springs to mind, one you immediately blame on exhaustion. You’re delirious, obviously. That’s why you thought something so absurd.

You’re talking before you even think about it. “Mando?” 

You might be far from the cockpit, but your voice carries through the _Razor Crest_ like sound across water. The sound of clunking footsteps tells you that he’s heard. He appears in the doorway of the hold, devoid of armor but his helmet in place as always. 

“Yeah?”

There it is again—the soft note of concern in his voice. Suddenly you feel shy, like a child about to ask for something they shouldn’t want.

“I can’t sleep.”

A snarky line is the expected response, but instead the Mandalorian just sighs. He nods. “Yeah. Happens sometimes. After a mission, you know. Too tired to sleep.” 

_Exactly,_ you think. Though you don’t think he understands the chasm inside you that keeps reminding you that you almost lost him. The idea that your exhausted brain provided is still hanging on your tongue, and it falls out before you can stop it. 

“Come here.”

The Mandalorian tilts his head in confusion but you’re too tired to care. You raise your arms like the child when he wants his ball. 

“Come here. Lay down with me.”

Your words have completely frozen the Mandalorian in place, standing awkwardly in the doorway like a statue.

“Just for a minute. Please. Until I fall asleep.” 

With agonizing slowness, the Mandalorian crosses the room towards you. You scoot over on your bedroll, making a pitiful amount of room for him. He lays down stiffly, like he doesn’t know how to use his body, but it’s still good to have him close. 

“Just so I know if you’re about to die on me again,” you mutter.

The Mandalorian just hums softly and reaches over to you, tugging him to your side. You fall asleep with your face on his chest, listening to him breathe. 

☆

 _Warm_. That’s the first thing you notice when your eyes flutter open, however many hours later. You feel warm, which is unusual; space is freezing and you’re used to being cold down to your bones. But you’re warm through and through and there’s a pleasant weight wrapped around your middle. As you rub your eyes and yawn, you realize there’s also a soft feeling on your neck like you’ve fallen asleep in front of a heated vent.

Realization arrives slowly, piecing together in your brain as you come awake. You—well, you slept with the Mandalorian, didn’t you?

 _Not like that,_ you tell the devious little gremlin in your brain. _Definitely not like that_. Your mind is hazy with sleep and you don’t know how long you’ve been out, but you remember very clearly that, last night, you begged the Mandalorian to lay down with you until you fell asleep. And he’s still here, to your surprise, with one strong arm wrapped around your waist and his breath coming soft and slow on the nape of your neck. So, yes, technically, you slept with the Mandalorian.

 _Maker_ , it feels good. His arm is heavy around your middle and his hand rests on your stomach, a gesture so unwittingly possessive it makes you feel like you’ve swallowed a swarm of butterflies. You’re on your side, legs curled just a little, and he’s molded to the shape of your body with his chest pressed to your back. Surely you didn’t fall asleep like this. You remember reaching for him, but you don’t remember fitting your body against his like interlocking puzzle pieces. Is it possible that it was him? Did he move you closer after you fell asleep? The idea of it makes you a little lightheaded: the image of the Mandalorian, sleepy and vulnerable, wrapping his arms around your sleeping form and pulling you tight against him. 

_There’s no way_ , you think. _There’s no way in the galaxy that he wants you like you want him._ That image belongs in your dreams and your dreams alone.

You try to stay still. You don’t want to wake him; he still needs to sleep and heal. But your back is sore from sharing a thin bedroll on a metal floor, and you need to move just a little, just to get comfortable. _Stars_ , he’s holding you close. You shift and stretch, letting out a sigh of relief, but the change of position also serves to bring you in contact with— _oh._

A hot flush rises on your neck. He’s hard. At least, you think he is. Unless he sleeps with a blaster on his belt—which he very well might, knowing him—the Mandalorian is hard, and his hips are now pressed flush against your ass.

You can’t move. You can’t even breath for fear of waking him up. Heat spreads through your entire body, pooling in your lower belly. You’d be lying to yourself if you said you’d never thought of this scenario before—conjured up in half-awake dreams, laying here on the floor of his fucking ship, thinking about him as you fall asleep—but now that you’re actually here, you have no idea what to do. It’s just biology, you tell yourself, and it’s completely unrelated to you, but, oh, _fuck,_ does it feel good.

 _Don’t move_. Your mind is fighting with your body, telling you to stay in place even when every muscle is screaming to move, to just—roll with it, move your hips, rock against him, something base and instinctual like that. But you can’t let yourself take advantage of the situation, so you breathe slowly through your nose and sternly tell yourself to get it together. 

You’ve just about calmed down when he moves behind you. He makes a low, sleep-roughened sound and shifts, moving his body against yours and somehow pulling you even closer than before.

_Don’t move._

“Good morning.” 

_Fuck_. His voice sounds _good_ in the morning.

He grumbles a little and buries his face in your hair. You bite your lip to keep from saying anything, too scared that an embarrassing noise will come out. Something like a moan, or worse, begging him to hold you like this forever. Silence is suspicious, though, and he can tell you’re awake; you feel his attention burn on the back of your neck for a handful of heartbeats. Then, as if he’s noticing the hard line pressed against the curve of your ass for the first time, he _apologizes_.

His voice is rich and rumbly with sleep. “Ignore it.” 

_Ignore it? Are you fucking kidding me?_

“Okay.” Your voice is soft.

“It’s—it’s nothing.” He sounds pained. “Sorry.”

You don’t respond, and he keeps talking. It’s nervous, barely-conscious babble. “It’s not you. Fuck, I mean— _fuck_.” He gives up and sighs. “Just stay. Please.”

“Okay,” you say, and you mean it. 

He buries his face into your hair again, and it’s the brush of his nose on the back of your neck that finally jolts you awake. He’s not wearing the helmet. _He’s not wearing the helmet_. It’s not just sleep that makes his voice sound different; it’s the fact that his voice is unmodulated and all too present, right against your ear. Suddenly, the fact that he’s rock-hard against your ass feels incredibly insignificant by comparison. 

“Mando.”

“Yeah?” 

“You’re not wearing the helmet.”

A moment passes in silence, though you’re sure your heartbeat is audible in the quiet of the hold.

“No.”

“Why?”

“You saw.”

He says it like it’s the simplest thing in the world, but it feels like the ceiling is collapsing down on you. He knows. He knows you saw his face, that you snuck a peek at him while he was actively dying in front of you. It wasn’t on purpose, of course, but he doesn’t know that. All he knows is that you broke the one fucking rule he set. You bury your face in the pillow under you, wondering why he hasn’t pushed you away in anger yet. 

“I’m sorry.” Your voice is muffled, your face still hidden. 

He hums from behind you, the sound rumbling in his chest and into your back. “Don’t be.”

“But I—”

“—you didn’t have a choice. You saved my life. And you saw. So…” He trails off.

“...so now I get to look?” 

He pauses. “Yeah. If—if you want.”

 _That’s how this works?_ You’ll be the first to admit that the Mandalorian creed is obscure to you. You only know the basics of it: the helmet, the clan of the two, the mission to return the child to his kind. That is to say—you don’t know what it means to see his face. What does it change between you? You don’t know, but you do know that you need to see him. You’ve been curious about him since you met him, but since you saw part of his face the other day the curiosity has become unbearable. An even more urgent need supersedes it: the need to know he’s alive. You want to see him here and breathing and holding you, just to make sure you didn’t die with him on the sands of Tatooine and this is some bizarre afterlife. 

You turn over slowly, your breath caught in your chest. You blink, and you’re looking at the Mandalorian.

 _Warm_.

The same thought from earlier springs to mind again. _Warm_ ; that’s what he looks like. The tan skin and dark stubble you saw under his helmet days ago were just a tease. He’s all warmth, olive skin and curly dark hair and deep brown eyes. It’s like you don’t know how to breathe anymore, your lungs feeling like the vacuum of space. He’s just—and you almost want to laugh at the absurdity of the thought—so fucking _pretty_. Your cheeks burn with a deep blush and you hope he doesn’t notice. 

A flicker of nervousness passes across his face. Your hand moves of its own accord, rising up to touch his cheek. His eyes flutter shut as your fingertips brush across his face.

You touch his cheekbones first, feeling his skin warm under your hands. Then you trace the pronounced ridge of his nose— _stars,_ his nose is cute—and down to his lips. Somewhere in the back of your mind you’re aware that this is probably inappropriate, stroking the Mandalorian’s lips with your fingertips, but you can’t stop. Now that you’ve started, you can’t stop looking at him and touching him and trying to commit every line of his face to your memory. You want this picture in your mind forever. It feels like you actually know him for the first time, this strange, solitary man you now realize you can’t be without. 

An absurd, nervous laugh bubbles in your chest, and it escapes before you can clap your hand over your mouth. He visibly recoils and looks off to the side.

Oh, stars. You didn’t mean _that;_ you’re just nervous.

“I’m—I’m not laughing at you,” you stutter. “Hey. _Hey_. Look at me.” 

He turns back to you reluctantly. You reach for him again, even gentler this time, like you’re tending to a wounded animal. It finally registers that this is probably the first time anyone has touched his face since he was a child. Who was the last person to touch him? His mother? His father? No wonder he flinched when you laughed. Does he even know what he looks like? 

A question hangs in the air, one that neither of you is willing to put words to. _What do you think?_

“You…” your voice sticks in your throat. You run your hand across his forehead, brushing his hair back. It’s thick and lovely and you want to bury your fingers in it. “Who knew you were so damn pretty under all that?” 

He blinks in surprise. 

“It’s a shame you have to hide it.” You try your best to keep your tone light and joking, but he looks at you with those deep brown eyes and you fail miserably. “I’m serious. You’re…”

You trail off, because that sentence ends with something like _you look like every fantasy I’ve ever had_ and _you look like you were made for me._

He says a single syllable and you nearly miss it.

“What?”

“Din.” He swallows hard and repeats it. “My name is Din. You can call me that. Here, at least. Not in public. But here—it’s fine.”

 _Din_. All the pieces are coming together as a whole. You know what his face looks like and now you know his name. It suits him, all of it: brown hair, brown eyes, tan skin, and a simple, strong name. _Din_. 

All of the rules seem to be out the window, so you decide _fuck it_ and throw your arms around his neck. He’s taken a shower since he managed to get up and move around, clearly, because he smells soap and leather rather than blood and metal when you bury your face in his neck. You want to bathe in his scent and wear it on your skin. You want to lay claim to all of this—knowing his name, knowing his face, knowing his smell—because he feels like _home_ and you have no plans to let go of it now that you have it. 

There’s so much for you to say, but there aren’t words for all of it. You’re glad he’s alive. You’re glad he’s breathing and that his wounds have healed and that he remembers who you are. You’re glad that the child saved him and you’re glad that the kid didn’t lose his father. And you’re glad that you asked him to lay down with you last night, because you’ve woken up and it’s like the entire world has shifted between you.

But there’s no good way to put that into words, so you choose to act instead. You pull back just enough to face him properly. Your thumb brushes over his full lower lip and you feel his shaky breath on your hand. 

“Din,” you say, testing the sound of his name. “I’m going to do something, and if you’re uncomfortable, I want you to tell me to stop. Okay?”

He nods. Then you kiss him.

It—doesn’t go as planned. He’s tense; his lips are a hard line under yours, and you’re pulling back almost as quick as you leaned in.

“Do you want me to stop?”

He shakes his head no, and you run your thumb over his lips to try and smooth some of the tension there. 

“Hey.” You give him your best reassuring smile. “It’s just me.”

This time, you cup his cheek as you lean in. You let your fingers creep back to his hair, carding through his thick curls and tilting his face, and you find yourself smiling against his lips. 

His anxiety finally melts away and he lets you kiss him properly. His arm winds its way around you again, curling around the small of your back and tugging your chest flush against his. You push back on him, rolling so you’re halfway on top of him, and your thigh settles between his legs and brushes against the hard length between you. He sucks in a sharp breath and you take it as an opportunity to slip your tongue in his mouth and kiss him for all you’re worth.

Then he tilts his head a bit too fast and his teeth clack against yours.

He jerks back. His pupils are wide and dark and his lips are so _red_. “Sorry,” he rasps, and you want to suck the rough sound of his voice right into your mouth.

“It’s fine,” you say, a little breathless, and go right back to what you were doing. 

Time blurs as you kiss him on the floor of his ship. You don’t care about anything outside; nothing matters except the feeling of his mouth on yours and the noises you draw from him. He’s not experienced, but it doesn’t matter—he’s so _eager_. He kisses with slightly too much tongue at first, but you take your time with him. You show him how you like to be kissed, and it’s not long before you’re a mess right there with him. It feels so fucking good to be on top of him, touching him, showing him all the things you don’t know how to say. And he’s so hungry for it, taking whatever you give, mouth hot against yours and hands roving all over your body. 

Your clothes very quickly become a hindrance. You’re as hungry for him as he is for you, fucking _ravenous:_ first you saw his face, then you learned his name, and now you need _more_. His pulse pounds under your lips as you kiss his neck and slip your hands under the bottom of his shirt. You ruck his shirt up just enough to spread your hands out on his stomach, and you can’t help but hum in satisfaction when his muscles tense in response.

“Can I—?”

He’s nodding before you can even finish the question. You sit up and let him twist out of his shirt, shamelessly enjoying the sight of his biceps flexing as he tosses his shirt aside. Fuck, he’s pretty _everywhere_. His chest is marked here and there with old scars and dusted with dark hair. He’s built and scarred like a warrior, and you drink in the sight like a man in a desert finding water. You like how human and _alive_ he is, the brightness of his eyes as he looks up at you and his chest heaving with uneven breaths. You don’t even pretend to be demure as you look at him, your eyes unavoidably falling to the line of hair under his navel to the fastening of his pants. When you duck your head and press your lips to his scars, his breath hitches and he arches his back underneath you. _Perfect_. He’s so reactive. Everything between you feels electric, every movement sending a spark from you to him. 

His hands find you clumsily, going for the hem of your shirt. He doesn’t even need to ask. Your shirt joins his on the floor, and his eyes go even darker as he rakes his gaze down your body. He’s nervous, his hands hesitating before settling lightly on your waist. 

“You can touch me,” you say. Your voice is breathier than you realized. “Anywhere you want.”

With surprising confidence, he grins and grabs your hips. Like he’s proving how easily he can move you, he flips you over, smiling down at you with his eyes shaded by his messy hair. 

“Fucking show-off,” you snort. 

You know exactly how strong he is without him flaunting it. You like it, though; you like it a lot, and you’re going to show him exactly how much. Just like you taught him how you like to be kissed, you show him how you like to be touched. He’s attentive and methodical, which, if you could spare a moment to think about it, makes sense. He’s a trained warrior and he learns his way around your body as quickly as he learns his way around a new weapon. His focus is laser-sharp as you guide him, offering breathy little moans of _yes_ , and _there_ , and _just like that._ With every gasp and moan he draws from you, he gets bolder; when he finally slips his hands between your legs and finds you wet for him, he growls with such animalistic desire that it almost scares you. _Almost_. His possessiveness just pushes you higher, dizzy with the knowledge that he wants you just as much as you want him. 

You’re already halfway gone when he presses his fingers inside you. 

“Oh, shit.” His voice is just above a gasp. 

Your eyes flutter open. “Are you okay?” 

He’s looking down between you, where he has two fingers buried inside you, his palm pressed to your clit. He’s fucking mesmerized. He looks up at you and his eyes are _black_ . “You’re so— _fuck_. Soft. And—and _warm_.”

He’s so confident in everything else that you keep forgetting this is his first time with any of this. Of _course_ he’s marveling at how it feels to be inside you. It fills you with a heady sort of bliss, completely unrelated to the feeling of his thick fingers stretching you open. You get to be his first _everything_ , and the possessive part of your hindbrain reminds you that you want to be his _only_. 

You drop your hand and guide his, showing him how to apply pressure just right, the perfect rhythm to make you tighten around his hand and moan. When he drops down and kisses you while curling his fingers against the perfect spot inside you, you almost lose it. He’s so fucking gentle and strong and overwhelming and he has absolutely no right to make such a mess of you when you’re the only one who’s done this before.

Not like this, though. Not with him. 

“C-can I go inside?” He murmurs the question against your lips. “Please. _Fuck_ , I need to feel you. _Please_.” 

Fucking _Maker_ , he’s killing you. You’re already so keyed up, but his shy eagerness makes you fucking wet. You nod and tell him yes, over and over again, and you keep saying yes as he pushes inside you for the first time. 

He makes a sound like he’s choking. He’s a fucking picture, slack-jawed and flushed down to his chest, sucking down air like he can’t remember how to breathe. You cant your hips, encouraging him to push deeper. You want to show him that you can take all of him; you can be so _good_ for him. He takes a shuddering breath and rolls his hips, sliding home inside you. 

Fuck, it’s _never_ felt like this before. 

He stays still for a long moment, his arms defined as he holds himself still on top of you. It drives you crazy, actually, the stretch and burn of him filling you but not fucking moving. But you’re letting him set the pace, and when he finally pulls out and thrusts again, you’re gasping right there with him. 

It turns out that when he’s turned on, Din can’t stop talking. He sets a slow, even pace, like anything faster will break him, and turns the air _blue._

“Oh, shit. Fuck. H-how do you feel so fucking _good?_ Fuck, you’re perfect. You feel—shit, shit, _shit_ —so f-fucking _tight_ and _soft_ and…”

You hitch one of your legs up around his waist, forcing his downward thrust deeper, and he chokes on thin air. His arms give out and he drops on top of you, burying his face in your neck. Somehow, this is even better; he pins you with his full weight but he’s still moving inside you, pushing you higher and higher even as he keeps you down. That, and you can hear every growl and bitten-off curse right by your ear. 

“Shit. I’m—oh, fuck, I’m not gonna—” His voice, usually a rumbly baritone, is absolutely fucked. It’s low and rough and he sounds like he’s in _pain_. “I’m not gonna last—oh, _shit.”_

Your hand finds the nape of his neck and your fingers tangle in his hair. Your other arm wraps around his back, pressing into the ridges of his spine, feeling the muscles of his lower back flex as he starts to lose control and fuck you faster and harder. That’s how you need it, just a bit rough and raw. You need the reminder that he’s dangerous, he’s a fucking bounty hunter, but he’s choosing to use all the strength of his broad body to fuck you on the floor of his ship, and in turn you’re making him fall apart just by kissing him and touching him and taking him inside you.

“That’s it,” you manage, your own voice breathy, “just like that, just like that, _just like that.”_

You can feel your orgasm start to build as he grinds down on you. Like a feedback cycle, you drive each other wild; your inner muscles start to tighten around him, and he growls like an animal and slams his hips into you. He’s lost in it, his face hidden in your shoulder as he chases his release. You meet him thrust for thrust, taking him as deep as you can, listening to him fall apart.

“I’m gonna come.” His breath is harsh against your neck. “I’m gonna fucking come. I’m—oh, shit. Oh, _fuck, fuck, fuck.”_

“That’s it.” You can tell he’s close and you dig your hands into his back. “That’s it. So fucking _good_. Give it to me, Din, _please_.”

It’s the sound of his name that breaks him. His breathing goes harsh against your neck and he groans your name impossibly low as he buries himself inside you. You keep your legs wrapped around him and your hands on his back, feeling his entire body tense with the force of his orgasm. 

Then he outright collapses on you. You don’t mind, actually, even though you’re _so_ close to coming. You don’t mind that you’re left hanging on the edge, because _fuck_ , it feels good to have him on top of you, fucked-out and boneless and vulnerable. This is going to be a problem, isn’t it? You’re going to get addicted to this feeling. You want this every night and every morning, whenever you can have it. 

After several long moments, he seems to realize that he’s crushing you and pushes himself up just enough to let you breathe. He looks down at you and it’s actually fucking adorable how nervous he is. 

“Uh—you—you didn’t—uh. Should I…?”

“Here,” you say, putting him out of his misery. When you pull him down, he goes easily, laying on his side by you. You settle into his arms again, your back to his chest. He lets you guide his hand between your legs and his breath shudders against your neck as you move his fingers with yours. When you finally come apart, you’re wrapped in his arms, feeling safer than you ever have before. 

You don’t say much afterwards. You don’t need to. He nestles his face in the crook of your neck, his new favorite place, and traces aimless patterns on your skin until he falls asleep. You stay awake just a bit longer, just listening to his breath and feeling his heartbeat. Every beat reminds you that he’s here, alive, with you. He chose this—chose _you_ —and the realization makes you feel warm all over. 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](https://letterfromvienna.tumblr.com/) xoxo


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